Kirby Player ’83, ’87 and ’15 serves as lecturer in Agricultural Education for the College 
of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences. Player also leads the Palmetto Leadership for the Environment, Agriculture and Forestry and South Carolina Extension Advancement Council as Executive Director.
Professor of history and geography Rod Andrew M’93 was recognized as the 2023 Alumni Master Teacher by the Clemson Student Alumni Council (SAC). Andrew specializes in the history of the American South and U.S. Military history. His biography of Wade Hampton won the Mary Lawton Hodges prize in Southern Studies in 2009, and his biography of Andrew Pickens won the Harry M. Ward Book Award. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and recently served as officer-in-charge, Field History Branch, U.S. Marine Corps History Division.
The Alumni Master Teacher Award honors a professor for their outstanding instruction in the classroom. The Clemson student body submits nominations for consideration and the honoree is selected by SAC. Each year, SAC hosts a reception to recognize their dedication to students, faculty, staff and to Clemson.
Students chose Allen N. Swords as the 2022 Alumni Master Teacher. Swords is a senior lecturer in the English department of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, and he teaches courses on sequential art, Holocaust literature and art, and the Vietnam War and Star Wards mythos. The award for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction is presented each spring to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
“I am speechless. Humbled. Proud. And stunned,” Swords said. “I had no idea I was even nominated or in the running.”
Sarah Gibson, who took six classes with Swords, said that he is “by far the most caring and thoughtful professor out there. He comes to class with the most positive attitude and will go to lengths to make every student feel heard and appreciated.”
Swords received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in English from Clemson.
The Alumni Master Teacher Award is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council (SAC) for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction. Due to COVID-19 the Student Alumni Council postponed the selection of the 2020 Master Teacher. This year, they selected two honorees: Vladimir Matic and Krista Rudolph.
Krista Rudolph is a Senior Lecturer in Biological Science in the College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences. Rudolph received her B.S. from Clemson in Science Teaching/Biological Sciences in 1990. She then received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from Clemson in 2002. She has been an instructor at Clemson since 2007. Rudolph began her involvement in the Clemson community in 1993 as a graduate teaching assistant. She has served Clemson on the Clemson University Grievance Board, Faculty Senate Delegate, Faculty Senate Scholastic Policies Committee, and Faculty Research Committee. Her students recognize that her efforts during time on zoom have gone above and beyond.
The Alumni Master Teacher Award is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council (SAC) for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction. Due to COVID-19 the Student Alumni Council postponed the selection of the 2020 Master Teacher. This year, they selected two honorees: Vladimir Matic and Krista Rudolph.
Vladimir Matic, is a Senior Lecturer in the Political Science Department of the College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences. Matic has been a senior lecturer and visiting professor since 1996. He teaches international relations and foreign policy (U.S., NATO, EU, Balkans), diplomacy and negotiation as well as Middle East and comparative European politics. Matic organized an educational enrichment trip for National Scholars to Brussels, Hague and Belgrade in 2006. Since 2007, he organizes and leads Summer Study Abroad programs in Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. He is a member of the Public International Law and Policy Group which provides pro bono assistance to entities and governments involved in negotiating conflict resolution and peace and nation building. He served as a consultant to the United States Institute of Peace. In 2001, Matic developed a program for training of new diplomats and government officials in post-Milosevic Serbia. Matic was a foreign diplomat in the Baltics for 33 years. His students respect him for his mentality of the more you put into his class the more he will give back to you
CLEMSON – Clemson University students have chosen Kelly Smith as the Alumni Master Teacher of 2019.
Photo Credit: Kelly Smith
Smith, an associate professor of philosophy in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, was nominated by several students including Graham Pitman, who said Smith’s passion for taking on the big questions of life and the universe sets off intellectual sparks in the classroom that can turn even the most apathetic students into deep-thinkers.
“Kelly puts his heart and soul into educating his students,” Pitman wrote in a nominating letter. “In addition to actually getting us to understand the concepts, he teaches them in fun and memorable ways. He also teaches us how to think and not necessarily just what to think.
The honor is selected and presented by the Clemson Alumni Association and Student Alumni Association. The Student Alumni Council reviews each nominated professor – this year, more than 180 – and select one teacher who they determine embodies the spirit of Clemson through dedication to the education and overall betterment of students.
Smith said he was humbled to find out he won the award but deferred most of the credit to his students.
“There are a lot of really good teachers on campus. Who wins the jackpot depends on a lot of factors,” he said. “This particular semester, before I was even nominated for the award, I thought to myself several times, ‘I’ve just got some really good classes this semester. The students are really clicking and everyone’s enjoying it.’ That doesn’t always happen. Classes have personalities.”
Many roles
Smith is passionate about teaching. He lives by the motto docendo disco, which means “through teaching, I learn.”
In 1998, he came to Clemson from a stint at The College of New Jersey. “I quickly came to realize Clemson is a really good fit for someone like me because it takes research seriously, but it also takes teaching very seriously,” he said. “The students here are very bright; if you introduce them to ideas, they’re willing to engage. You expose them to these big ideas like God and free will and the nature of existence, and you can almost see the light bulbs go on sometimes. I really enjoy that.”
Smith wears several professional hats, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences at Clemson and also as a member of the faculty at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville, where he oversees the ethics and professionalism curriculum.
In recent weeks he donned yet another hat, by becoming an interim department chair.
“I am very pleased to report that Dr. Kelly Smith has agreed to serve as interim chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion,” said CAAH dean Richard Goodstein. “I want to thank him for stepping up to the plate at this important time for the department. I believe Kelly will provide excellent leadership during this time of transition and I look forward to working with him.”
The perfect niche
Kelly Smith recreates Rafael’s famous “School of Athens” fresco with student Christian Weeks playing Plato. Image Credit: Courtesy of Kelly Smith
Smith grew up in the Toco Hills area of Atlanta, raised by his father Ted, a doctor, and his mother Annelle, a social worker. Even as a kid, his interests ranged across a wide spectrum; he loved reading science fiction and playing Dungeons and Dragons, but he was also on the track, wrestling, and football teams.
“I was on the slightly cooler end of the nerdy pool,” he laughed.
His affinity for varied interests would portend what he does now – combining biology with philosophy. Smith said he’s found the perfect niche with his job at Clemson.
“If you’re good at more than one kind of thing it can actually be a problem in a way,” he said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to do physics or biology or history, and I was into chemistry at one point. I could have done any of those.”
After he enjoyed a few philosophy classes, Smith realized that other disciplines could be combined with philosophy. He also realized that doing philosophy of biology means “you can hang around with biologists, but you don’t have to run a lab.”
Smith said he decided to become a professor after watching his own professors as an undergraduate at Georgia State.
“I looked at them and said ‘that’s an awesome job,’” he laughed. “You get to hang around smart people all the time, you get to think about stuff you’re interested in, dress codes are not that strict, you don’t punch a clock – and the pay is OK.”
Kelly Smith lecturing to a group of faculty at the Madren Center. Image Credit: Clemson University Relations
Smith received his Master’s in biology from Duke University in 1992, followed by a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1994. His research is wide-ranging and includes work on philosophical issues surrounding the search for life on other planets, the concept of “genetic disease,” the relationship between religious faith and scientific reasoning, ethical implications of new technologies, complex systems in developmental and evolutionary biology, and the origins and nature of life.
His Clemson roots extend deep into his own family. His wife of 34 years, Karen, is a computer programmer for the university, and all three of their children – Jessie, Sam and Laura – attended Clemson. (As a father, Smith said he appreciated that Clemson was a good value).
Smith enjoys golf, painting, video gaming and has a second-degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Hapkido. He and his wife also enjoy traveling the country in their RV.
Clemson University students have chosen Carter McElveen as the Alumni Master Teacher for 2017. McElveen is a senior lecturer in the marketing department of the College of Business.
Carter McElveen (right) is surrounded by her students while accepting the Alumni Master Teacher Award. (Photo by Diana Davidson)
McElveen teaches courses in professional selling and marketing principles, along with leading sales experiential, marketing plan, and stewardship creative inquiries.
The Alumni Master Teacher award for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
“I was completely shocked,” said McElveen. “I’m still in shock over it and incredibly humbled and honored to be included in the group of faculty at Clemson that has been named Master Teacher.”
Being a former Student Alumni Council member, Carter knows what goes into selecting a Master Teacher. “I know the process is very competitive,” she said. “I know the award is all encompassing of how you fully engage with your students, and that is my goal. I want to be the best teacher I can be, so this is incredibly validating.”
Student Alumni Council member and Master Teacher award co-chair Margeaux Laschanzky was a student in one of McElveen’s classes.
“Carter truly embodies what it means to be a Master Teacher because she puts her whole heart into her students and into Clemson,” said Laschanzky. “I thought it was the most special ceremony so far because she has so many friends and family show up and because she was on Student Alumni Council.”
To illustrate how she puts her heart into her students, Laschanzky said McElveen takes the time to learn the names of all her students even when she teaches in big lecture halls.
Crawford Phillips, another Alumni Master Teacher award co-chair said many students mentioned that she cares a tremendously about her students’ success both in and outside of the classroom.
“Carter strives to make strong personal connections with each student and touches each of their lives in a unique way,” said Emma Schafer, also an Alumni Master Teacher award co-chair.
McElveen received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Clemson University in 2003, and her Master of Business Administration from the University of South Carolina in 2010.
Before beginning her career at Clemson, McElveen worked as a Sales Representative for Eli Lilly and Company for over 8 years. She has been a professor at Clemson since 2011.
Beyond her teaching duties, McElveen is actively involved as a Master Advisor to undergraduate marketing students, the Delta Sigma Pi Faculty, an Honorary Blue Key Member, and the faculty advisor to the Clemson Chapter of CUMA, the student marketing association.
She has also received the Dean’s Award for Student Engagement in 2015 for her dedication to her students.
“When I started as an undergrad, I had several teachers that were impactful on me and my experience, one being Dr. Mary Anne Raymond, who won the Master Teacher award,” McElveen said. “She hired me and mentored me, and it came full circle because she was there when I received this award.”
CLEMSON — Clemson University students have chosen Kerri D. McMillan as the Alumni Master Teacher for 2016. McMillan is a senior lecturer in the finance department of the College of Business and Behavioral Science (CBBS).
She teaches courses in investment analysis, risk management, insurance and personal finance to 150 upper-level undergraduate students each semester.
Kerri McMillan (center in black dress) stands surrounded by some of her students after accepting the Alumni Master Teacher Award. (Photo by Patrick Wright)
Kerri McMillan (center in black dress) stands with some of her students after accepting the Alumni Master Teacher award. Image Credit: Patrick Wright / Clemson University
The Alumni Master Teacher award for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
“I am so honored to be the recipient of this award. I was still so excited Monday night, I could hardly sleep,” said McMillan. “I especially enjoyed hearing what my students had to say about me. I truly love my field of finance and teaching our Clemson students. When I pull into Sirrine Hall parking lot, I count my blessings. I love every day I am in the classroom.”
Student Alumni Council member and Master Teacher Award co-chair Lillian Tribble said that students enthusiastically nominated McMillan.
“Mrs. McMillan’s students took the time to email descriptive nominations to the Master Teacher co-chairs, including reasons why they thought she was a ‘Master Teacher’ and observations about her teaching method,” said Tribble. “For example, one student said that she was the most positive teacher they had ever had.
“Students in the Student Alumni Council who knew Mrs. McMillan, from having her as a professor or from having her as an adviser for the Blue Key Honor Society, were passionate about her winning the Master Teacher Award. These students loved her and were able to tell many stories about their positive experiences in the classroom.”
Parkwood Griffith, also an Alumni Master Teacher award co-chair, said McMillan’s penchant for instilling passion in her students where it might not have been before and showing them the real-world applications for what they learn in her class helped set her nomination apart.
“Mrs. McMillan not only taught students the course material required, but also taught them how to apply this material and use it in the real world,” said Griffith. “Students felt like she encouraged and prepared them about finance in the real world. Mrs. McMillan’s students also mentioned that she encouraged them to be interested in a subject they originally thought was dull.”
McMillan received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Southeastern Louisiana University in 1981, and earned her Master of Business Administration degree from the University of South Carolina in 1988. She earned Chartered Financial Analyst certification from the CFA Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1994.
Before coming to Clemson, McMillan spent a decade as a portfolio manager and securities analyst for Liberty Capital Advisors in Greenville, an investment management company.
Beyond her teaching duties, McMillan is actively involved as the Wall Street South Investment Club adviser, is a South Carolina Society of Financial Analysts member and a Blue Key Honor Society academic adviser. When she is not in the classroom, she can be found in the trading room teaching students Bloomberg Financial Markets analytics.
She has received numerous awards for her dedication to students, including the CBBS Teaching Excellence Award and the Clemson University Student Government Excellence in Teaching Award.
“What is so gratifying for me is that our students are doing so well,” she said. “My students leave my investment analysis class with technical tools and a specific skillset. Many go on to study for the Chartered Financial Analyst certification exams. What a thrill it is to be a part of all the dynamic things that are going on in the college. I am grateful to my students, my husband, Dr. Jeffrey McMillan, who has also been my mentor, my wonderful three children and my distinguished colleagues at Clemson.”
CLEMSON – Clemson University students have chosen Dr. Jack G. Wolf the Alumni Master Teacher for 2015. Wolf is an associate professor of finance in the College of Business and Behavioral Science (CBBS).
Clemson University Associate Professor of Finance Dr. Jack G. Wolf receives the 2015 Alumni Master Teacher Award.
Clemson University Associate Professor of Finance Dr. Jack G. Wolf receives the 2015 Alumni Master Teacher Award.
“I am completely surprised by my selection this year and very honored,” Wolf said. “To be honest, many of my students consider my courses to be very challenging. The reason is that I decided long ago that if I wanted my students to be successful in their jobs after they graduate, I needed to set expectations, especially in my senior-level course, similar to what their supervisors in their first job would have.”
A fascination with space might seem completely unrelatable to the world of finance, but for Wolf the two disparate interests fit quite nicely together, and add a unique angle to his teaching style.
Wolf said he grew up wanting to know how things worked.
“Perhaps I should have been an engineer,“ he said, “but like many other kids, outer space fascinated me. I even worked as a counselor at Space Camp while I was in college. But when I finished my degree in astronomy and physics, my interest had waned somewhat. I still wanted to do something analytical and, to me at the time, finance was the most numbers-oriented of the business fields.
“The training I received in the sciences really taught me to think methodically, and knowing that cause precedes effect is just as important in finance as it is in physics. There are times in class where I fall back and use analogies that may seem more like physics. When we discuss what makes some bonds more sensitive to interest rate changes, it is a hard concept for the students to grasp just looking at a formula written on the board.
“Getting them to think about a pendulum made from a rope with knots tied into it makes it easier to understand because the students can visualize what’s going on. They can see how making the knot at the bottom bigger will affect how much the pendulum will swing. Then I can point to parts of the formula so that they can see the connection to what they pictured in their head.”
The Alumni Master Teacher Award for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction is presented to the faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
Clemson University Associate Professor of Finance Dr. Jack G. Wolf receives the 2015 Alumni Master Teacher Award.
Clemson University Associate Professor of Finance Dr. Jack G. Wolf receives the 2015 Alumni Master Teacher Award.
“Dr. Wolf was chosen because he genuinely cares about his students achieving excellence in and out of the classroom,” said Sterling Lecy, vice president of the Clemson Blue Key Honor Society. “He consistently goes the extra mile to make sure Clemson’s business program is producing top candidates for post-graduate opportunities and devotes his own time to understanding the intersection between theory and practice that is so often overlooked.”
Many recent financial management graduates return to campus as recruiters for their new employers.
“I hear from many of them about how they found financial modeling to be one of the most useful courses that they took at Clemson,” said Wolf. “I don’t think it is strictly because of the topics covered; many of these companies cover the same technical aspects in the training program that new employees go through. Instead, the students learn how to act like a professional because they are treated as one. This eases the transition from student to professional and gives the students a head start.”
Wolf graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in astronomy and physics in 1991, and he earned a Master degree in business administration at Wake Forest University in 1993. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Utah in 2000 and started teaching corporate finance at Clemson the same year.
He has received numerous awards, including the 2009 CBBS Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award, the 2000 Western Finance Association Best Corporate Finance Paper Award, the 1998 David Eccles Doctoral Teaching Excellence Award, and he was named the Cote Faculty Fellow for Research and Scholarship Excellence in 2005.
Wolf lives in Clemson with his wife, Angela Morgan (who is also a finance professor at Clemson) and his son, Ryan.
END
Clemson University students chose accounting senior lecturer J. Russell Madray as this year’s 
Alumni Master Teacher for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction.
The annual award is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.
In addition to teaching intermediate accounting, Madray is president of The Madray Group Inc., which he founded in 1996. The Madray Group, based in Greenville, helps businesses, accounting firms and other organizations understand and implement technical accounting and auditing issues. It specializes in providing technical reviews, inspection services and technical assistance to small- and medium-sized accounting firms throughout the U.S.
Madray also is Scholar-in-Residence at Elliott Davis in Greenville, one of the largest accounting, tax and consulting firms in the Southeast.
He received his Bachelor of Science in Accountancy from Clemson University in 1986 and his Master in Professional Accountancy degree from Clemson University in 1988.
“Thirty-two years ago, I stepped onto this campus as a freshman,” he said. “Twenty-one years ago… I stepped into the classroom to teach accounting. During that time, I’ve always tried to remember two things. First, I was once a student and I’m sure I did some things, or failed to do some things, like homework, that did not please my professors. Second, times change and people change, so we don’t always have to do things the same as we did five or 10 or 20 years ago.”
Madray has written several bestselling books on accounting, authors many of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ publications and frequently contributes to the Journal of Accountancy. He also speaks to hundreds of groups each year on accounting and auditing topics and has made presentations in more than 40 states.
He lives in Greenville with his wife, Beth, and two children.
Clemson University students have chosen Ashby B. Bodine the Alumni Master Teacher for 2013. Bodine is professor emeritus/visiting professor in the department of animal and veterinary sciences in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences.
“I learned to teach from observing the techniques, methods and practices of the teachers who inspired me to learn and to think critically,” said Bodine. He passes this knowledge on to his students and his teaching career has been dedicated to inspiring them.
“Teaching the next generation in a manner which inspires them to become lifelong learners is the key to the future,” said Bodine. “One cannot fail to enrich his or her own life while teaching others.”
Bodine’s research has been on the biochemistry and immunology of archaic vertebrates, in particular, sharks, rays and skates. Since 2006, Team Tiburon, an interdisciplinary Creative Inquiry team mentored by Bodine, has been researching an anti-tumor protein from the bonnethead shark that has great potential for use in anti-cancer treatments, including melanoma and breast cancer. The team has presented their findings at several research conferences.
Bodine has received many honors and awards including the Godley-Snell Outstanding Agricultural Research Award, the Class of ’39 Faculty Award for Excellence, the Gamma Sigma Delta Outstanding Teacher Award, the National Scholars Program Award of Distinction and the Outstanding Teacher Award from the National Association for Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture.
The Alumni Master Teacher Award for outstanding undergraduate classroom instruction is presented to a faculty member nominated by the student body and selected by the Student Alumni Council.